Thoughts on software-defined silicon [LWN.net]

Thoughts on software-defined silicon

Posted May 23, 2022 8:00 UTC (Mon) by littoral (guest, #140523)
Parent article: Thoughts on software-defined silicon

Intel is planning to rip off its customers, by selling them hardware that they can't use unless they pay an additional "ransom".
This kind of ripoff - pioneered, I believe, by IBM in the 1970s when it had an effective monopoly on certain kinds of peripherals - only works when a company has a monopoly. In a free, perfectly competitive market, the price of a product will be the cost of producing and delivering it, plus the reasonable profit margin that the manufacturer needs to stay in business.

It follows that the best defense is to make sure that AMD remains a viable competitor.

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Thoughts on software-defined silicon

Posted May 23, 2022 8:33 UTC (Mon) by jem (subscriber, #24231) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't see how this could be seen as a ripoff, if Intel is clear about what you get when you purchase the processor. What worries me is that people are not objecting to monopolistic pricing when you can't see it, but feel ripped off when they find out that a product is hiding additional capabilities that weren't in the purchase agreement in the first place.

I don't think we should be worried about Intel being a monopoly. To me it seems like they are gradually becoming the underdog, with AMD being competitive again. Apple has also proved that it is possible to make Arm processors that are competitive in general purpose computing, and with increasing distrust between China and the US, I wouldn't be surprised by a flood of powerful Chinese RISC V chips on the market in the coming years.

Thoughts on software-defined silicon

Posted Jun 7, 2022 18:52 UTC (Tue) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

> I don't see how this could be seen as a ripoff, if Intel is clear about what you get when you purchase the processor.

Intel's customer isn't you as an individual. These things are laundered through the retail and system-builder industry, and those middlemen are under no obligation to be clear or honest about this DRM if it'll make them an extra buck.

The Apple situation just reinforces that: they *do* advertise and sell direct to end users, so they aren't going to intentionally build lemons and cut corners simply because they don't have the responsibility-laundering arrangements in place to get away with that.